


My heart was colder when you'd gone

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Self-Harm, Self-Harming Harry, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 22:27:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3335060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This work is quite old, and goes along with what happens on the Tumblr blog larrytweets. Harry self-harms in this universe, and has been struggling with it for a while. This is set after they've already had 4 children together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My heart was colder when you'd gone

_But fingers tap into what you were once_

_And I’m worried that I blew my only chance_

Harry tries really hard to remember how he got here, but nothing comes to mind. He feels like he’s been standing here for his whole life, glued to the floor, frozen in time. It feels like staring at the car through the front door is the only thing he’s ever done. His kids are in that car, but they won’t look at him. Harry can almost feel how disgusted they are by him, how much they hate him, how repulsive they think he is. He can only agree with that. The strange thing is, that doesn’t hurt him all that much. Harry’s had those same thoughts about himself for years on end. He’s used to the way they sting, it’s something he lives with every day. What hurts him though, the thing that truly kills him, rips him apart and leaves him irreversibly broken, is that he is not their father anymore. They’re leaving him. Four children that he would give his life for are going away and not coming back. And it’s his own fault. Harry can’t look at them anymore, or he might just actually fall apart, so he tries to focus on something else. The only thing his eyes find are Louis. His husband is standing in the doorway, car keys in hand, looking at Harry like he makes him sick. He probably does, Harry thinks. Louis wouldn’t be leaving if Harry didn’t sicken him. Louis is leaving. And he’s taking everything, everyone, every part of Harry with him. The only things Harry never tried to cut out of himself are slipping through his fingers.

“Please.” Harry chokes out, and the sound echoes through the empty house. _Empty._ Harry feels empty too. Not in a good way – emptiness is something he chases after every time he slices open his skin. Harry craves emptiness, craves silence. But this is different. This silence, this void, will leave him shattered. He wonders if he’ll even be able to hold himself together long enough to walk up the stairs. He wonders if the silence will allow him to remember where he hid the only thing that could save him.

“No.” Louis says. And it’s so harsh, and it hurts, Harry feels that one word tearing him open until there’s nothing left but little pieces of nothing. Harry has always been nothing. Now he’s going to be even less than nothing, he’s going to be shattered bits and pieces of _pathetic_ and _failure_ and _disappointment._

“Please.” Harry’s voice sounds like it’s coming from far away, like he’s underwater and his words are floating on the surface. “Please give me a chance. Don’t leave.”

Louis shakes his head. “I can’t.” He looks Harry straight in the eyes and all Harry can see is the most hateful shade of blue.

“Please.” Harry says once more, barely a whisper now.

“You’re a joke of a father.” Louis spits out. He pauses, looks Harry up and down with a disgusted look. “And a joke of a husband.”

“Please.” The word falls from Harry’s lips a fourth time. “I’ll try harder, Lou. I’ll stop. Don’t leave me.”

“I’ve heard that before.” Louis hisses. “You don’t try, Harry. You don’t want to get better. You care more about your blades than about us.”

Harry shakes his head. His vision is starting to get blurry now and his cheeks are wet and _this can’t be happening._ Because he knows, he knows, he knows it’s for good this time. Louis isn’t coming back. Not after a weekend, not after a week, not ever.

Harry opens his mouth to say something, to try to save himself, but he stays silent when he sees Louis reach out for him. When Louis’s hand closes around his, a pang of hope shoots through him.

But then he breaks into a million pieces because Louis’s fingers fumble with Harry’s ring until it’s lying in his palm. Louis closes his hand around it. Harry knows he’ll never see that ring again.

“You’ve made your choice.” Louis says.

And then he’s gone.

+++

  
_Pick up your clothes and curl your toes_

_Learn your lesson, lead me home_

_Spare my sins for the ark, I was too slow to depart_

 

 

Harry’s drifting in that not-asleep-but-not-awake-space, but something doesn’t feel right. Something is missing, and he knows it. Still half asleep, his arms search for that familiar warmth that usually is pressed against his chest in the morning. When his hands find nothing but cold sheets, Harry frowns. And then he remembers.

His eyes fly open and he sits up quickly, his eyes tear up a little because they’re not adjusted to the bright light yet, and then they spill over when he realizes what happened.

Louis is gone.

Harry wants to scream at the sun for shining so brightly like this is a happy day. But then he realizes nobody would even hear it when he screamed because this house is so empty. There’s nothing here because everyone is gone and Harry is nothing, like he always has been. The house is empty and Harry is empty and Harry is nothing. He’s even less than that now everything that ever mattered to him has been ripped out of him, leaving fresh scars in between the small white lines he already made on his skin.

His kids are gone.

Harry’s skin feels like it’s too tight and he just wants to crawl out of it, wants to crawl out of himself, but at the same time he wants to stay in his skin and scar it, over and over. He wants to make the fresh wounds that have been jabbed somewhere inside of him visible, wants to feel the pain in a different way.

Everything is gone.

So he feels around underneath the bed, pulls out a carton box and places it on the covers spread over his lap. Harry laughs cynically – Louis always looked everywhere, but never in the obvious places. Why would Harry hide blades in their bedroom? Why would Harry hide blades in a box filled with memories?

Harry almost takes the lid of, but then he decides that he doesn’t want to do this here. He can’t replace the crushing pain that’s ripping him apart on the inside with bruises on the outside in the bed he shared with a man that once loved him. Harry wants to keep this pure, untouched, never wants the memory of Louis to be stained with his blood.

So he moves to the bathroom on auto-pilot. It’s always been his safe haven, it’s familiar to do this here, to sit down on the cold tiles, to clean the red of the white when he’s done. Sometimes he’d let Louis clean him up. Harry thinks he doesn’t even want to clean it up this time, just wants to sit here and bleed until he’s got nothing left. Everything he has, he’s always given it to others, because it’s the only thing he can do to make up for the broken parts of him. But now, Harry doesn’t have anyone to give it to, and he just wants to fade away. So maybe he should just give this away, let it flow out of him, until he goes numb, until he flies out of his own skin.

Sitting down with his back against the cupboard, he stretches his legs out in front of him and thinks of the first times he did this. His phone next to him on the floor, fresh memories of just how much people hated him floating around in his head, it all comes back to him. Harry laughs bitterly – he used to need that confirmation, needed to know that it wasn’t just himself that thought he was worthless. He needed to know that other people saw too how flawed he was – how flawed he still _is._ But now, Harry knows. All of those people who said those things about him, they don’t matter. He doesn’t know them, they’re not his loved ones. The people he cares for the most, the people he gives everything he has, see his flaws too. And they can’t deal with them anymore, so they left. Harry _knows_ he’s worthless, can feel it in his very core. He wishes he could just walk away from it too, could walk away from his flaws and his scars. But he’s stuck in this body, and all he wants is to cut himself out of it.

Ignoring the voice telling him that _this_ is the reason they left him and that even now, he still can’t stop, Harry takes the lid off. His breath catches in his throat. He knows what he’s lost. He can feel it, the parts that have been ripped out of him, leaving him incomplete and broken beyond repair. Harry can hear what he’s lost, can hear it in the voices surrounding him, now louder than ever, telling him he’s a disappointment, a bad husband, a bad father. It’s all around him, it’s closing him in, and he can _taste_ it, the rejection, the repulsion. It’s right there, on the tip of his tongue, a sour, nasty taste, making him nauseous. But s _eeing_ it. Seeing what he’s lost is a whole different thing.

It was always their little thing, creating these memories. Harry thinks that maybe it was a way for them to make these moments last longer; but now, it only confronts him with the fact that these moments are gone. They don’t mean anything anymore. Harry doesn’t have anyone to share this with. He remembers Louis shoving a polaroid camera into Liam’s hands way back in the X-factor house, the day after their first kiss. They hadn’t told anyone, but everyone knew – it was that obvious. In the picture, Louis has an arm around Harry’s waist, and Harry has one around Louis’s shoulders. They’re smiling brightly, nothing forced about the picture. They were still the same height back then. Harry almost laughs at how young they were. Almost.

Harry doesn’t want to look at that picture anymore. He doesn’t want to see that version of himself, unbroken, unknowing of what’s coming his way. He wonders if he’d be sitting here if he never auditioned for the X-factor, but he lets that thought go. Even though everything he loves is gone, he knows he wouldn’t have had it in the first place if he had chosen not to audition. But it’s still so painful to look at this picture, so he puts it face down on the floor next to him.

But really, that only reveals another picture. Him and Louis, at the Eiffel Tower, teary, tired smiles on their faces. Harry remembers how heartbroken he’d been after finding out Louis cheated on him. When they finally made up after spending an awfully long time not talking to each other, Louis proposed to him, right there by the Eiffel Tower. Everything about that picture screams _happiness._

Harry keeps going through the pictures, and they fall around him on the floor one by one. Some of them are big moments, important key points in their lives. Others are just small memories, like a picture of them on the tourbus, Louis’s head on Harry’s chest, sleeping. Niall had taken that picture; he had left it by Harry’s arm, “xoxo Captain Niall” scribbled on the back because he’s an idiot like that.

The last one he finds is from right after their wedding. Harry chokes out a sob and realizes he’s been crying the whole time. That, right there, what he’s holding between his fingers, is the happiest memory he has. Finally marrying the man he loves, after so many obstacles. And he threw that away. All of it. For this.

So the final picture lands on the white floor tiles, but it isn’t over yet. His eyes finally land on the four tiny wristbands that are sitting on top of his blades. He picks them up, one by one.

_Leah Anne Styles-Tomlinson_

_6-JAN-2016_

_Blaine Liam Styles-Tomlinson_

_15-AUG-2020_

_Summer Faith Styles-Tomlinson_

_31-OCT-2025_

_August Edward Styles-Tomlinson_

_31-OCT-2025_

His four children. Harry remembers the days they were born so well, the memory covered in a haze of nerves and happiness and maybe a dash of fear for the responsibility for another human being. It’s all gone now, they left him, couldn’t deal with him. He’s alone. Harry has always felt a little alone, because there’s a part of him that nobody really understands – not even Harry himself – but this is different. He’s not just alone. He’s lonely.

When all of the memories are out of the box, scattered around him on the floor, Harry takes out a blade. He turns it over between his fingers a couple of times, fascinated by the way it catches and reflects the dull morning light. His other hand explores the raised edges of the scars on his hips absentmindedly, just a feather light touch. Tracing those white lines back to when they were made, Harry lets himself remember the time he made a few big, nasty scars. That time Louis found him. That time he promised Harry that they were in this together, that they were going to fix this. He wants to be mad at Louis because he stopped trying, but he can’t. Maybe I never even tried in the first place, Harry thinks. Maybe this is all I am.

And just like that, it begins. Harry makes himself watch this time – he usually never really looks at it until he’s done -, makes himself see what it looks like. It’s almost pretty, the way the skin of his hip splits underneath the pressure of the blade, the way milky white turns into crimson red within a matter of seconds. It’s unlike anything Harry’s ever seen before, breathtaking; but maybe that’s just his demons closing him in, suffocating him. He keeps going, parting his skin over and over, because he doesn’t want to think. If he lets himself think, the only thought that will come up is that he no longer has a future, that he has nothing left. If he has to die alone, he’d rather feel this than the unbearable pain of being unwanted, unloved. If he has to, he’ll cover every square inch of his skin with scars. Harry briefly wonders what that would look like, his entire body covered in small, white lines, before he lets his head fall back. He drowns in the pain slowly, but he doesn’t feel the need to go up for air, not when the screeching voices of his demons are fading out one by one.

Silence.

Nothing.

+++

  
_But my heart was colder when you’d gone_

_And I lost my head but found the one that I love_

_Under the sun, under the sun_

 

 

Louis thought he’d hear Harry bustling around the kitchen by now, softly humming along to the radio – he hardly ever does anything without music playing in the background. Instead, Louis is greeted by an eerie silence when he walks through the front door. He doesn’t like the feel of it.

Louis shakes that thought immediately; Harry is probably still asleep. Louis didn’t have the heart to wake him up this morning, Harry hasn’t been sleeping well lately and he could use the extra rest. So when Harry slept straight through the alarm, Louis had gotten up alone and took the kids to school by himself, grateful that Summer and August weren’t on one of their particularly difficult mornings.

After taking off his shoes and throwing his keys on the kitchen table, Louis walks up the stairs silently. Maybe he can take a nap, join Harry in bed for a couple of hours. But when Harry isn’t in their bedroom, Louis frowns. He’s really sure Harry hasn’t left the house since he left to drop the kids of. The house was quiet when he came back – he would’ve heard Harry if he were in the laundry room, or in the shower.

“Harry?” Louis calls out.

“Lou.”

The sound is muffled, and broken, and desperate, and it’s coming from their bathroom. Louis looks up at the ceiling. _No._ He walks over to the door, and keeps his voice low and unthreatening when he asks

“Harry, love, can you let me in?”

It’s silent for a couple of long seconds, and Louis is already crouching down to sit against the door – Harry hardly ever lets him in until he’s cleaned himself up – when he hears

“Door’s open.”

It’s almost a whisper, like even those two words take a lot of effort to say. Louis is stunned for a couple of seconds, surprised by the affirmative answer – not only is Harry letting him in, the door is also not locked. It’s always locked.

So Louis reaches out for the door knob finally, finding Harry on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him. His eyes are red-dimmed, tears still streaming down his face, and there’s blood. A lot of it.

Louis sits down in front of him, tentatively lifts Harry’s feet and puts them in his lap, knowing Harry will flinch away right now if he touches any part of his upper body.

“Hey.” Louis says softly.

Harry looks up at him, and frowns, a mix of emotions running over his face.  Louis sees a hint of panic there, wonders what happened, but knows better than to push Harry to tell him. Harry opens his mouth a couple of times, before closing it again, unsure of what the right words are. Louis is patient. He’ll sit here for a whole day if he has to.

“Why are you here?” is what Harry finally decides to say.

“Because you are.”

It’s a simple answer, but it’s true. He could’ve said “because you let me in” or “because you hurt yourself”. But what he finally chose to say means so much more than just the fact that Louis is here in this moment, in this place, because Harry is here. Louis means that he’s always with Harry, no matter how bad it gets, no matter where he goes. He’ll follow him anywhere.

Harry frowns again, shakes his head.

“You left.” He says, voice soft.

“Yeah, I was dropping the kids of. I would’ve stayed if I knew.” Louis says, pushing his thumbs into the soles of Harry’s feet, massaging the skin there.

“No, you…” Harry takes a deep breath, looks up at the ceiling for a second, “You left.”

“And now I’m back.”

Harry still looks confused, opens his mouth to say something, but closes it again, like he’s accepted the fact that he can’t make sense of the situation. Louis’s eyes land on the floor around them. When he sees the polaroid pictures and the hospital wrist bands, he immediately knows where the carton box next to Harry came from. He hasn’t looked at that box in ages. Maybe I should have, Louis thinks, when he finally spots the bloody blades on the floor besides Harry.

“Do you want to hand those over, please?” Louis asks, knowing that Harry will know what he means.

Harry shakes his head. “No.”

“Okay.” Louis breathes. “Can I clean you up later?”

Harry doesn’t answer immediately, instead lets his eyes roam over Louis for a couple of seconds. He stares at Louis’s hands for a bit, where they’re rubbing soothing circles into his feet. Harry slowly looks up again, taking in every inch of Louis, as if he finds it hard to believe that Louis is actually here.

He sighs, looks down at his hands. “Okay, yeah. Later.”

Louis nods as an agreement.

“What do you want to do in the mean time?” He asks, still rubbing Harry’s feet, noticing how it takes away just a little bit of the tension in Harry’s muscles.

Harry shrugs, still looking at Louis in disbelief.

“We can just talk.” Louis offers.

“What about?”

Louis thinks about that for a second, and then he remembers their polaroids on the floor. He picks up one of them, turns it over, smiles at the memory. Turning it around between his fingers, he shows it to Harry.

“Our first date.” Harry observes.

Louis nods. “You made me dinner. We’re lucky I didn’t have to make the food. I might’ve killed both of us.”

Harry chuckles lightly. “You can’t cook for shit, Lou.”

“No, I can’t.” Louis looks at the picture again. “We ate on the roof. It was a nice night, clear sky.”

Louis is surprised at how much he remembers – a bottle of red wine, a blanket on the roof, a couple of candles, gazing at the sky, talking about nothing and everything at the same time. He remembers the way Harry’s laugh carried through the chilly night air, the way the moon lit up his curls, the way he’d felt so at home. So safe.

“I already knew back then, you know.” Louis says after a minute of silence.

“What did you know?” Harry asks.

Louis shrugs. “This is going to sound so awfully cliché.” He takes a breath, hopes that he can find the right words. “I knew that I wanted to be with you. That you were the kind of person I could stay with forever, you know? ‘cause I was the kind of guy that got sick of people rather quickly, I always needed a fresh face to look at. Stan was the only one that I could stick with, really. And my family of course. But you. I just, couldn’t get enough of you. Like, I enjoyed being with the band in general and all that, I knew I’d found something permanent, but you were a whole different thing. I can’t even explain it.” Louis stops talking for a second, looking at the tears streaming down Harry’s cheeks again, but Harry gestures for him to keep going. “I just knew that I would’ve gone anywhere with you if you asked me to. You were so different from anyone I’d ever met, and you were so sure of what you wanted in life, so determined, and I just wanted to be with you, wanted to watch you grow as a person, watch you live your dreams. I’m so grateful that you gave me that chance. God, I love you. I’ve loved you ever since that day.”

Harry nods. “I love you too. So much.” He chokes out. He takes a deep breath, and then says “Shit, I’m so sorry.”

“No.” Louis says firmly, “Don’t ever apologize for this. Don’t ever think that this makes you any less of an amazing person. I know that you think all of these horrible things about yourself, but none of them are true. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. You’re an amazing husband, Harry, and an amazing father. I wouldn’t have wanted to start a family with anyone else. God knows it’s scary to be responsible for four kids, but it feels good with you, you know? It feels safe. And I’m so, so proud of you, for letting me in. You never do that, not before you’ve cleaned everything up. But you let me in today, and I’m so proud.”

Louis doesn’t think that he can say anything else without sobbing, so he stops talking, watches as something like understanding washes of Harry’s face. And then relief.

“I had a dream.” He says, “Well, a nightmare, actually.”

Louis says nothing, waits for Harry to explain.

Harry sighs. “You left. And you took the kids. And my ring.” Harry looks down at his hands, where his wedding ring still sits around his finger, and chuckles under his breath. “Should’ve figured. It was afwul. You said… Shit, you said that I was a joke of a father and a joke of a husband and that I don’t try and that I don’t want to get better…  And, fuck, you left, Lou. I though you left. I woke up alone and I thought it was real. But I try, I swear, I want to get better. I really do.”

“I know, you do. Shit, I would never, ever say something like that. I would never leave you like that.” Louis pauses for a second. “Harry.” He says, waits until Harry looks him in the eyes. “I promised you we were in this together, okay? And we are. I’m not leaving you. I don’t think I could if I wanted to.”

Harry is stunned for a couple of seconds. Then, suddenly, he grabs the blades next to him and stretches out his arm, bringing the little, bloody pieces of metal closer to Louis.

“What…”

“Take them.” Harry interrupts.

Louis keeps staring at Harry’s hand, unsure of what to do.

“Come on, take them.” Harry pushes, “I’m not going to say that I don’t want them, or that I don’t need them, but take them.” Louis is still a little hesitant. “Please.” Harry adds as an afterthought.

Louis brings up his hand slowly, takes the blades out of Harry’s hands, and is a little surprised when Harry lets go immediately. Louis doesn’t even wince at the blood, he doesn’t care. He can’t wrap his head around what is happening right now. This is huge, it’s a big step, but it seems like nothing for Harry.

“You’re giving me your blades?” Louis asks incredulously.

“Yes.” Harry answers, handing over the carton box too, where a couple of clean blades still sit at the bottom, “I’ll show you where I hid the rest of them later. I’m sick of hiding.”

Then, Harry gets up, takes of his boxers, and sits down on the side of the bathtub, patiently waits for Louis to follow him and clean him up. So Louis puts all of the blades in the box, puts the lid on it, gets up and grabs a wash cloth. This is routine, really.

So Harry closes his eyes, lets Louis wash him all over. His hips go last, like they always do, and Harry’s hand lands on Louis’s shoulder. It’s a habit, part of the routine, pinching his shoulder when Louis cleans his hips. It’s a sign of “it hurts a bit” but also “it’s okay”. As soon as Louis has disinfected the cuts and covered them up, Harry gets up. He goes into their bedroom, puts on some clean clothes, and curls up on the bed.

“’m tired.” He mumbles.

Louis knows that. He always is.

“Gimme a sec.” Louis calls out.

He collects all of the polaroids and the wristbands, puts them in a drawer for now, and puts the box next to it. He knows that Harry won’t try to take it and hide it again. Louis trusts him not to. Then, he cleans the floor, scrubs at the tiles until they’re white again. Louis knows Harry hates it when there are still signs of blood the morning after he cut. It makes him feel guilty.

When he’s done, he follows Harry into the bedroom, curls around him in bed, presses his chest to Harry’s back.

“You’re too small to be the big spoon, Lou.” Harry chuckles.

“Shut up.”

Harry yawns. “I love you.”

“I said shut up. But I love you too.”

 

 


End file.
